by Iain Pears
“Certainly not. Why should I be?”
“I’m eating,” he said.
“I do apologise for disturbing you. I can either go away for a while, or wait, as you please. But I’m afraid I must talk to you this evening. I have to return to London tomorrow morning.”
He studied me carefully. “Are you hungry?”
If I write out his words in normal speech, and say I could understand them, do not think that he spoke in a normal, or easily comprehensible fashion. He did not; my time with Mr. Steptoe was a triumph of concentration and much of what the rest of his family said escaped me entirely. I said I had eaten, thank you, but could easily eat some more.
He nodded at this then led me down the little corridor into the kitchen. It was a bit like being presented at a court ball; eight faces examined me intently as I came in and stood, a little sheepishly, by the little stove. I felt like an interloper, a foreigner, a threatening presence.
“Father, this is Mr. Braddock, from London. This is my mother”—the old woman smiled severely—“my sister Annie, my two brothers Jack and Arthur, Lily, my fiancée, and Uncle Bill. Jack—move. Mr. Braddock here wants your chair.”
“London?” said the father, who tended to speak in one-word sentences.
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m here to sort out a few legal matters with regard to Lord Ravenscliff ’s estate. I need to discuss a few matters with your son.”
“Everybody knows all about that,” said he. “Don’t think you have to hide anything from them. What else is there to say? I’ve been tried and found guilty, haven’t I? Everyone knows. Or did he see the light and leave me some money?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said with a grin. “And he didn’t leave me any either, if that makes you feel any better.”
“So?”
“Lord Ravenscliff believed that you were innocent of the accusations made against you.”
This caused a stir. “He could have bloody well told me,” said Steptoe junior.
“As far as I understand, he came to his conclusion about three days before he died. He had no opportunity to tell you.”
There were looks all around the table, half pleased, half resentful that I should have the power to affect their lives in such a fashion.
“Now, there is a problem,” I continued. “While Lord Ravenscliff may have been convinced, he did not put down in writing his reasons. So I have the task of redoing all his work. In other words, to find out what was happening. So I need from you a full account. When it is complete, Lady Ravenscliff will write to Mr. Williams at the plant, you will get your job back and, I am sure, be paid in full for the wages you have lost.”
It was a handsome offer, and one which I was not entitled to make. But it did the trick nicely. From then on they were falling over themselves to tell me whatever I wanted to know.
“So, please tell me the precise circumstances of this accusation.” Lawyerly, I thought.
“It was all lies,” said the mother defiantly. “Jimmy’d never…”
“Yes, Mother, it seems we’re all agreed on that,” he said patiently. He thought for a while, then glanced around at his family with a slight smile, and asked his mother to make another pot of tea. As she filled the kettle from a big bowl of water near the back door and put it on the hob, he began.
“I’m a bookkeeper, you know,” he said. “My dad here didn’t like it, because he’s a shipbuilder, a boilermaker, and didn’t like the idea of me working in a suit. He reckoned I’d get grand ideas, and get above myself. But I was clever at school. I always got high marks in arithmetic and spelling, and my hand was good, copperplate when I wanted. My teacher liked me, and put in a word with the yard, and got me taken on in the offices. I began there about eight years ago, and learned the business of bookkeeping. I went on courses even, to improve myself, and did well. I was promoted, and paid more, and I didn’t get above myself, I don’t think.”
His father scowled amiably, as though to concede the point.
“Anyway, my job was make payments out for bills that came in. Not the big ones, you understand. Miscellaneous and sundries is my department, and there’s no rhyme nor reason to a lot of it. So, when I got in this bill for twenty-five pounds, I paid it, cash in an envelope, posted to the address on the docket. A couple of weeks later, all that remained was a twenty-five-pound deficit, and enough evidence that I must have been the one to have taken it; all the other pieces of paper had vanished. I was asked to explain. No one believed me, and I was fired, and told I was lucky I wasn’t going to gaol.
“I was so upset I could have cried. I did, in fact. I couldn’t believe it had happened to me, and even wondered whether I had made some mistake. But there couldn’t have been. There were only two possible explanations—either I’d stolen the money, or the request for payment had been real. I knew I hadn’t stolen anything, so that meant the dockets must have been removed. I don’t make mistakes, you see. But I was in a right way; there was no chance now of ever getting another job again, not in Newcastle. Pretty soon everyone would hear something, that’s the way it works. I was going to go to live with my second cousin in Liverpool, start again, and hope no one would find anything out. I was even acting as though I was guilty. Only this lot,” he gestured at the people sitting round the table, who nodded, “stood by me. Not even the union would help. They didn’t help thieves, they told me. Not worth their time; they had enough to do with deserving cases.”
He snorted bitterly as he sipped his tea. His father looked uncomfortable.
“And then I got this short letter, asking me—ordering me, more like—to come to the Royal. No signature, nothing. I almost didn’t go, but I thought—why not? I was wondering, you see, what it was about, and I had nothing else to do. So I went, and knocked on the door, and there was His Lord… Ravenscliff, I mean. All alone.
“I was terrified, I don’t mind telling you. Just the room was frightening enough; I’d never seen the like before, even grander than the music hall, with its velvet curtains and golden furniture. And Ravenscliff…”
He paused to shift uncomfortably in his chair, and stirred some more sugar into his cup. “You never met him, you say? If you had I would have to say no more. He was a frightening man. Bulky, not fat, and he never moved much. Didn’t have to; just looked at you, and that was enough. Didn’t speak loud either; he made you listen to him. Did nothing to make you comfortable or at ease. Just told me to sit, and then looked at me, for ages. Didn’t move a muscle all the while, and me getting hotter under the collar, and more and more upset.
“‘I didn’t do it,’ I blurted out when I could stand no more. ‘And if you want to put the police on me, then go ahead…’
“‘Have I said anything about the police?’
“‘So why am I here?’
“‘Well, not for the police,’ he said quietly. ‘I could have you arrested and thrown into gaol without even leaving London, you know. You are here because I want to ask you questions.’
“‘What sort of questions?’
“‘Not why you did it. That is of no interest to me at all. How you did it does concern me, though. The controls should be proof against people like you, and they weren’t. So, in return for your freedom, I want to know how you did it.’
“‘Will you, for the last time, listen to what I am saying? I didn’t do anything. I did not steal anything. Not a penny. Not even half a penny.’
“That’s right,” his mother interrupted, nodding her head in approval. “And when he told me that, I was so proud of him…”
“Ravenscliff stared at me, with no expression on his face at all. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. That was frightening, you know. Normally, you say something, and you know how well it’s gone down. Not with him. You couldn’t tell a thing.
“‘Prove it,’ he said.
“‘I can’t,’ I said bitterly. ‘That’s the trouble.’ And I told him what had happened. Everything I’ve told you, and more. He nodded as I spoke; i
t was clear he knew the procedures perfectly well. Then he asked me questions.
“‘Every bill is stamped with a number, which runs in sequence. If one was removed, it should have been obvious. The same goes for payment slips.’
“‘I know,’ I said. ‘I can only think that it was stamped with a duplicate number, so that if it was removed, then there would be no gap. That would mean that someone deliberately made out a fake bill, then removed it. And not me, either.’
“‘Why not you?’
“‘Because I wouldn’t have paid it myself, would I? I would have made up a bill, got hold of the stamp and numbered it with a duplicate number, and then slipped it into someone else’s pile for payment. At the end of the day, after the money had been sent out, it would have been easy enough to go to the files, find the bill and remove it. Then gone to the address and picked up the money.’
“‘That is a convincing explanation, Mr. Steptoe,’ he said. ‘But it means you are accusing one of the people who work with you in your office.’
“‘No,’ I said quickly, because I didn’t want to accuse anyone. ‘Lots of people come in and out all day.’
“‘I see.’ Ravenscliff walked to the window and stared out of it. I was confused, a bit, but I didn’t feel as though I should ask. But still, I wondered. This was a rich man, fretting about twenty-five pounds. Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves, but this seemed stupid.
“And then he told me to go. Didn’t say anything more. Just dismissed me like some footman. I decided then and there to prove it. I’d been sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, but he made me mad. I wasn’t going to be labelled a thief, not by him and not by anyone. I came home, and talked it over with my dad. He told me I had to try. And we talked to my cousin, another cousin, not the one in Liverpool, who works nights. He talked it over with…”
“Does anyone in Newcastle not know about this?” I interrupted.
He looked surprised. “I didn’t tell a soul. Only my family. Of course I told them. They had a right to know. It affects them as much as it does me, you know. To have a thief in the family…? But they stuck with me. Of course I told them.”
“I see. I’m sorry. Go on.”
“Anyway, it was all organised. I’d go in with my uncle and cousin on the night shift and go to the office. It was easy enough to get a key from one of the watchmen, who’s a son-in-law of my Aunt Betty. Then I’d settle down and start going through the books, and leave with the shift when it went off in the morning.”
“And?” I prompted. “And it took ages. I went through every slip of paper, going back months, and then compared those to the shift books, showing who was on duty. Every single one. I couldn’t afford to miss anything.”
I nodded. I knew how he felt. I wondered if the Ravenscliffs made a habit of somehow getting total strangers to do their hard work for them. Elizabeth had done the same with me, after all.
“Eventually, I had it. Six payments, of between twenty-one and thirty-four pounds each, none with matching dockets. That told me that whoever was doing this knew how the office worked. Because anything over thirty-five has to be countersigned by the chief clerk. Whoever was doing this knew not to be too greedy.”
“But you didn’t find out where the money was going?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
He held up his hand to ask for patience. “I asked second cousin Henry…”
I groaned.
“… who also works in the office, to keep a look out, and eventually the chance came along. Henry couldn’t take the thing, obviously, but he did copy it out, with the address for payment.”
“Can you remember what the address was?”
“Of course. The one I told Lord Ravenscliff. Fifteen Newark Street, London, E.”
The house I had seen Jan the Builder going into.
Steptoe had got up, and vanished. He returned a few moments later with an envelope.
I looked at the piece of paper inside. It was a bill, for £27 13s 6d, in respect of miscellaneous goods supplied. Dated 15 January 1909, with a number in the top right-hand corner, which Steptoe explained was the invoice number on the file, and which was duplicated on another, legitimate bill. At the bottom was a note: “c. pay B ham 3752.” I asked what that was.
“That’s another way of tracking money,” he explained. “This indicates that the money was ultimately to be drawn from a bank account belonging to a different part of the organisation.”
“I see. So this means…”
“Cash payment drawn on Bank of Hamburg account no. 3752.”
I thought. So this young man had discovered that payments were being made frequently to this bunch of anarchists in London, using a loophole in Ravenscliff ’s pride and joy, the organisational structure he had set up over the years. It was being done by someone who understood it well, perhaps even better than Ravenscliff did.
“Who was responsible for this? Do you know?”
The young man nodded. “I do.”
“And you told the company?”
“I did not.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not my job to betray my workmates to the bosses. I was happy to clear my own name, but not at the cost of blackening someone else’s.”
All around the table nodded in agreement. I had quite forgotten they were there, but evidently what Steptoe had said had been discussed by them. This was a family decision, not his alone. So I nodded in approval as well, as though it was exactly the decision I thought he should have taken. In fact, it probably was.
“I can tell you who was behind it all, though.”
I looked at him. “Well, let me take a guess, then. Obviously not one of your workmates. So, you are about to tell me it was one of the bosses themselves. Otherwise you wouldn’t say a word. Correct?”
He grinned at me, in a fetchingly boyish fashion. “That’s right,” he said with some satisfaction. “He told me everything, once I’d figured it out. He was brought in one day, about six months ago, and told that he had to do this. Slip fake invoices into the piles and remove them afterwards. Naturally, he asked why, although he didn’t expect to get a reply.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re expected to do as we’re told. Not understand the reasoning for it. He expected that he’d be told off, and told that he was just to do it, not wonder what it was all about. What business of his was it? Instead, he got a long explanation.”
“And who was this from?”
“Mr. Xanthos, who’s a boss. Very high up, he is.”
“I see. Go on, then.”
“Anyway, Mr. Xanthos said that people think selling things like battleships and guns is easy. It isn’t, says he. You have to persuade people. And that involves things that people had best not know about. Like helping to make up their minds with little presents. Doing the necessary.”
“And that’s what these payments were?”
“That’s what he said. Little presents to people with influence, which would bring in the orders, and guarantee jobs right along Tyneside for years. Of course, it wasn’t a good idea for people to know about this. It had to be done secretly. And it had to be kept quiet if anyone found out about it.”
“So this friend of yours went away, thinking he was helping the company to bend the rules a little to secure jobs. And that it was all being done with the company’s approval?”
“That’s right. But Xanthos had told him that no one was to know. Mr. Williams and all the others didn’t want to know and wouldn’t thank him for saying anything. He only told me when I asked him a question in the pub. Difficult that was; I’m not welcome in pubs anymore. Not ones used by the factory. That was a week or so before the accident.”
“What accident was that?”
“Bad thing. Shouldn’t have happened, poor kid. But he was going through one of the steel yards at the end of the day, and there was a slip, so it seems. A post holding the girders in
place gave way, and they came tumbling down across the floor. He was in the way. Never stood a chance.”
“And this was?”
“About three weeks ago. They had the funeral, and a lovely thing it was. The company paid and gave money to his mother, because he was her only support. And so they should have, but many wouldn’t have. They’d have said it was his own fault, that he shouldn’t have been there.”
There was a moment’s silence as he finished. “Are there many accidents? In the yards, I mean?”
The father shrugged. “Some, of course. It’s only to be expected. Two or three a year. Mostly it’s people’s own fault.”
“This man, the one who died, he’s not going to be telling anyone else about these payments now, is he? Did he tell anyone else except you?”
Steptoe shook his head. “No. He was too frightened of losing his job. And who could he tell? I only got it out of him because he felt bad about what had happened to me.”
“So if he hadn’t told you, then no one would ever have been able to find out about this? And if the accident had happened only a little bit earlier…”
Steptoe nodded.
“Have you told anyone else? Apart from your entire family, that is?”
He grinned. “Not even them. Not all of them.”
“May I suggest that you keep it that way? I do not want you to have a pile of girders falling on you as well.”
The smile faded. “What do you mean?”
“The only other person to know anything about this was Lord Ravenscliff, and he fell out of a window.”
I stood up, and dusted the cake crumbs from my lap. “Thank you, Mr. Steptoe, and thank you all, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, bowing to the entire table. “It was most kind of you to talk to me and feed me such excellent cake. Now, is there anything I can do for you?”
“I want my job back.”
“I will talk to Lady Ravenscliff,” I said, “and get her to intervene. Do not worry on that score. In the meantime, please write down your account in careful, meticulous detail, and send it to me. I will suggest to her that she offer you payment for your services. That seems only fair.”
